Without more concrete evidence, the most popular platform is the highest-selling platform.

You think bottled water is more popular than tap water?

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Sources? Mine is this article, along with some other Mojang articles that I'd have to look really far back to find.

Without more concrete evidence, the most popular platform is the highest-selling platform.

The most definitive parts of the game are only available on Java. Nearly every single youtube video, screenshot, or reddit post is based on PC. It's not concrete, but it seems pretty clear to me that the originally PC only game remains dominantly thought of as being there.

People: "Waahh there hasn't been any changes in months this is getting boring!"

Mojang: "Here's a release."

People: "Waahh you changed something."

Not that this is unique to MC. The same pattern follows all long-running games (and heck, lots of long-running non-game software as well.) MC is a bit special though in that they allow you to run older versions, which you can't do on most games (if you have a disc you might be able to turn off autoupdates and stay with the original version, but you won't be able to hit any version between the original and current without finding and manually patching in update files or something, requiring a large amount of luck and technical skill.)

Personally I'm always looking forward to new MC updates and I don't really feel that most of them have significantly changed the character of the game. Here's some that I believe were big game-altering changes:

- The hunger change in beta1.8 was a pretty big one as you now had to find food, and fairly early on in your game, definitely altering your "first night" play as you almost always had to set up a food farm of one sort or another pretty much right away.

- Flying/elytra is a big one. It completely changes your end-game once you get used to it, and doubly so with the firework rocket mechanic so that you can essentially stay up forever if you pack your inventory full enough (and don't lag out at an inopportune time!)

- Enchantments/beacons. Mobs can become one-hittable with the right enhancements which is pretty big, but even bigger is instant mining. That's an enormous benefit if you're the "do big things in survival" type of player.

- Redstone. Not any specific redstone device, but just in general -- the ability to automate farms and whatnot changes a lot of the playstyle (not that you can't do other fun things with redstone but a flashing lamp doesn't really change the character of the overall game even if it lets you add some mood or whatever to your build.)

- Combat update I didn't find changed all that much to be honest. I don't pvp (which is what it was aimed at) so maybe that's why I didn't really care but it only took like 2 hours to get used to the new mechanic.

I'm sure there's more.. that's just what I've come up with off the top of my head. In particular new block types/colors and new mobs and whatnot I don't think change the character of the game -- they certainly change what you can build but not how you build/play, if that makes sense.

Besides, more people probably pay a water bill than buy bottled water. Anyway, I'm not saying Lord_Garek is wrong, I'm just asking for some solid counter evidence.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to provide solid evidence. Millions of people have been playing Minecraft on PCs for years before the console editions existed; a lot of those dedicated players get involved with downloaded maps, mods, and so on. But those people only buy the product once, and love the free updates forever.

Console and phone players are quite different; they buy the game for different platforms (a new phone or console), and play tends to be more casual, sorter term; a lot more mini-games, a lot less 100-hour builds.

PE sales have made a lot more money than PC sales, but that doesn't mean it is more popular. People are more willing to spend $6.99 on a phone app that they might play just a few times, but when you spend $26.95 on the PC version it is a more 'serious' purchase.

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Mini-games? Isn't PC the king of mini-games with all the fancy commands and servers?

For now, yeah; but "Better Together" is trying very hard to change that.

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The most definitive parts of the game are only available on Java. Nearly every single youtube video, screenshot, or reddit post is based on PC. It's not concrete, but it seems pretty clear to me that the originally PC only game remains dominantly thought of as being there.

Definitive? I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure the most definitive parts of the game are blocks, creepers, and redstone, and those are available on all platforms, and have been for a while. The mapping and modding community, while one of the best parts of Minecraft, are actually pretty insignificant compared to the whole of players. The reason the PC version is the most covered in the media is because it was the first version and has the most media significance already, but the media, especially stuff as subjective as YouTube and Reddit, don't necessarily paint an accurate picture. I mean, I used to say that Minecraft was dying because its internet coverage was diminishing, but sales data quickly proved me wrong.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to provide solid evidence. Millions of people have been playing Minecraft on PCs for years before the console editions existed; a lot of those dedicated players get involved with downloaded maps, mods, and so on. But those people only buy the product once, and love the free updates forever.

Console and phone players are quite different; they buy the game for different platforms (a new phone or console), and play tends to be more casual, sorter term; a lot more mini-games, a lot less 100-hour builds.

PE sales have made a lot more money than PC sales, but that doesn't mean it is more popular. People are more willing to spend $6.99 on a phone app that they might play just a few times, but when you spend $26.95 on the PC version it is a more 'serious' purchase.

But again, we don't have solid evidence that these people are mostly casuals, or how many copies of the game everyone owns. If even half of the console players and none of the PE players played the game on a regular basis, it would still outshine the total PC players in the Americas and is pretty close to the PC sales for the entire world.

At any rate, you still don't have any solid evidence to disprove my claim, and it simply being hard to get such evidence is not an argument.

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Definitive? I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure the most definitive parts of the game are blocks, creepers, and redstone, and those are available on all platforms, and have been for a while. The mapping and modding community, while one of the best parts of Minecraft, are actually pretty insignificant compared to the whole of players. The reason the PC version is the most covered in the media is because it was the first version and has the most media significance already, but the media, especially stuff as subjective as YouTube and Reddit, don't necessarily paint an accurate picture. I mean, I used to say that Minecraft was dying because its internet coverage was diminishing, but sales data quickly proved me wrong.

But again, we don't have solid evidence that these people are mostly casuals, or how many copies of the game everyone owns. If even half of the console players and none of the PE players played the game on a regular basis, it would still outshine the total PC players in the Americas and is pretty close to the PC sales for the entire world.

At any rate, you still don't have any solid evidence to disprove my claim, and it simply being hard to get such evidence is not an argument.

What are you going to do, argue that mobile edition is most popular? It's a cheap little thing people get and forget. You just can't compare mobile devices with actual video gaming. Of course the stats will be skewed in its favor, it's the most widely available to every audience.

What are you going to do, argue that mobile edition is most popular? It's a cheap little thing people get and forget. You just can't compare mobile devices with actual video gaming. Of course the stats will be skewed in its favor, it's the most widely available to every audience.

Even if you completely ignore the PE and use only the console edition, which is geared more towards hardcore gamers that want to buy a dedicated gaming machine, it still far surpasses the PC version. Console players represent 35.2% of sales, while the PC version only counts for 22.8% of sales. The point is, the PC version is the least popular, it makes the least sales, and modding didn't help much.

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Even if you completely ignore the PE and use only the console edition, which is geared more towards hardcore gamers that want to buy a dedicated gaming machine, it still far surpasses the PC version. Console players represent 35.2% of sales, while the PC version only counts for 22.8% of sales. The point is, the PC version is the least popular, it makes the least sales, and modding didn't help much.

"hardcore gamers who want to buy a dedicated gaming machine" buy a PC. Console is casual.

PCs in general are declining in popularity as a primary computing device - increasingly, more and more people are no longer even using them:

A decade ago, almost all web browsing was happening on desktop and laptop computers. The explosion in smartphone popularity has rapidly changed the dynamic, and older predictions may have underestimated the impact. According to new report from comScore, computer use is dropping off quickly as mobile devices encourage new types of interaction. In fact, many younger people don’t use computers at all, instead relying entirely upon their smartphones.

So it should be of no surprise that the majority of Minecraft sales have been for the Console and Pocket Editions. That said, sales of the PC version have not declined but rather have remained steady - remarkably so since the game was first released, actually; the Wiki has an outdated sales chart that shows 3-4 million PC sales per year between 2010-2015, a trend which has continued since then (around 20 million in June 2015, 23 million in March 2016, and currently 26.8 million). Of course, CE and PE sales have accelerated upwards with PE surpassing PC more than 4 years ago even though it was very simple back then (it didn't even get End content until late last year), as was CE (not just based on a PC Beta version but crippled with limited world size, mob limits, and more).

Note that was as of 2013, when CE was far more limited than it is today (as far as I can tell it was based on Beta 1.6.6 back then, plus the aforementioned limitations) - and even then it had already sold half as many copies as PC in a third of the time (around 2 million of those were in just 1-2 months, while as mentioned before PC has just steadily sold copies since 2010, contrary to most games, which see a big spike followed by a gradual decline, though Minecraft's indie origins make it a bit different from most big title games).

"hardcore gamers who want to buy a dedicated gaming machine" buy a PC. Console is casual.

A console is for the sole purpose of playing games. Those are geared towards hardcore gamers while at the same time trying to be more affordable than a gaming PC. A PC, on the other hand, covers a far wider demographic, from those who use it mainly for schoolwork, to those who use it in their career, to those who use it to game.

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A console is for the sole purpose of playing games. Those are geared towards hardcore gamers while at the same time trying to be more affordable than a gaming PC. A PC, on the other hand, covers a far wider demographic, from those who use it mainly for schoolwork, to those who use it in their career, to those who use it to game.

Don't look now, but consoles have been continuously updated for the past 6 years in order to make them as identical as possible to PCs. Consoles are no longer "for the sole purpose of playing games". They aren't really that much cheaper than a PC these days either. The line is becoming thin, and PC is more popular than ever for the gamer who wants it all.

Don't look now, but consoles have been continuously updated for the past 6 years in order to make them as identical as possible to PCs. Consoles are no longer "for the sole purpose of playing games". They aren't really that much cheaper than a PC these days either. The line is becoming thin, and PC is more popular than ever for the gamer who wants it all.

Let me rephrase that—the sole reason one would get a console over a PC is to play games. I mean, even TVs can do media streaming now, so why would you want a console for that purpose. Consoles, at least at the time of release, are cheaper than a gaming PC, so they have more mass market appeal. Sure, it's no secret that the most hardcore of hardcore gamers use a gaming PC, but that's only because they have $1.5k to spend on one. Most people who want to game prefer something that is cheap yet still powerful, hence the popularity of the PS4 and XB1.

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Let me rephrase that—the sole reason one would get a console over a PC is to play games. I mean, even TVs can do media streaming now, so why would you want a console for that purpose. Consoles, at least at the time of release, are cheaper than a gaming PC, so they have more mass market appeal. Sure, it's no secret that the most hardcore of hardcore gamers use a gaming PC, but that's only because they have $1.5k to spend on one. Most people who want to game prefer something that is cheap yet still powerful, hence the popularity of the PS4 and XB1.

This discussion appears to be getting a bit too far off-topic. This discussion is for talking about Mojang's development practices related to updating and adding features to the Java version of Minecraft. It is not a thread for instigating platform wars or console-vs-pc arguments.